Understand the telecommunications services and effectively manage the costs of those services. We explains in nontechnical language the most common telecom technologies and services in today’s marketplace. These services fall into four categories: local, long distance, data, and wireless services. Each service offering has its own unique type of bill.

Automated Attendant

Automated attendants answer a call, play a message with a menu of options and route the caller to the extension or menu choice selected.

In call centers, automated attendants are helpful in having callers direct themselves to an appropriate queue. For example, an automated attendant in a call center might ask the caller to dial one for sales, two for billing or account information and three for technical support. The call would then be routed to the correct department or the correct ACD gate.

Once it was common to find standalone automated attendants. Today they are usually a part of a voice mail or other voice processing system. In fact, they are so fully integrated into today’s PBX systems and messaging technologies that you almost never have to worry about buying this (or any of the voice technologies itemized so far). These are features of larger scale systems that are still important to the functions of a center.